Northern Irish Prime Minister Paul Givan, a member of the DUP (Unionist Party, faithful to the link with London), announced his resignation on Thursday February 3, triggering a political crisis. This decision has the immediate consequence of bringing down the Northern Irish executive, because by virtue of the equal division of powers between unionists and nationalists (favorable to the unification of Ireland), the Deputy Prime Minister, Michelle O’Neill, deputy leader of the pro-Irish party Sinn Fein, is also due to leave her post.
Three months before the parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 5, Northern Ireland finds itself without a head of government: the ministers should remain in office, but only to manage current affairs. In particular, they will not be able to advance in the adoption of the budget. The withdrawal of Mr Givan, who had only been Prime Minister since June 2021, follows multiple warnings from the DUP, Northern Ireland’s main loyalist party, which is calling for the abandonment – or radical rewriting – of the northern protocol -Irish, that part of the Brexit treaty governing the dual status of Northern Ireland – which remains integrated into the European internal market for goods.
The DUP may have supported Brexit, but it refuses the customs border in the Irish Sea (between Great Britain and Northern Ireland), which the protocol established. The delicate balance created by the 1998 peace agreement – which ended the civil war between unionists and nationalists – and the Saint Andrew’s agreement in 2006 – establishing the shared government between loyalists and nationalists – “was weakened by the agreement signed between the United Kingdom and the European Union which created the protocol”, justified Mr Givan on Thursday. “It’s as if the loyalists weren’t being listened to. It’s time to say enough is enough. said Jeffrey Donaldson, the president of the DUP, believing that the renegotiations of the protocol initiated by the government of Boris Johnson with Brussels are taking too long.
The previous evening, another member of the DUP, Edwin Poots, the Northern Irish Minister of Agriculture, had announced that he had asked local officials not to carry out the customs checks made compulsory by the protocol. On Thursday, a Downing Street spokesman did not condemn the move, saying customs checks are “within the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland”. On Sky News, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who nevertheless signed the Brexit treaty, judged “crazy” the fact that goods circulating on the British internal market are subject to checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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